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A commonly used figure to highlight inequality in Chile is the median income of the Chilean socioeconomic household survey (known by its acronym in Spanish, CASEN). According to this survey, in 2017 the median monthly income per worker was CLP (Chilean pesos) 400,718 pesos, which compares to average income per worker from National Accounts of CLP 1,350,000 in the same year. For this difference to be correct, the implied Gini coefficient would be 0.7, which much above the Gini implied by the same survey. However, surveys, such as CASEN, often underreport income, particularly for middle- and high-income earners, leading to an underestimation of the median income. This study compares various data sources, including national accounts, household surveys, and administrative records, to create a more accurate picture of income distribution and median income. The corrected data shows higher median incomes and greater inequality than previously reported. On average, the underestimation of gross wages in the Chilean national household survey as compared to national accounts is 40%, significantly larger than other countries. About a quarter of this gap is attributed to the \"missing rich\" in the survey. For 2017, this equates to an estimated median gross income for dependent labor of CLP 600,000 and CLP 570,000 for all workers. The corrected mean-median income ratio (Gini) is 26% (17%) larger than in the raw survey of 2017 and falls only 6% (3%) between 2006 and 2017 compared with a larger decline of 12% (11%) in the original data.

Much aggregate social-science analysis relies upon the standard national income and product accounts as a source of economic data. These are recognized to be defective in many poor countries, and are missing at the regional level for large parts of the world. Using updated luminosity (or nighttime lights) data, the present study examines whether such data contain useful information for estimating national and regional incomes and output. The bootstrap method is used for estimating the statistical precision of the estimates of the contribution of the lights proxy. We conclude that there may be substantial cross-sectional information in lights data for countries with low-quality statistical systems. However, lights data provide very little additional information for countries with high-quality data wherever standard data are available. The largest statistical concerns arise from uncertainties about the precision of standard national accounts data.

There are repeated calls to go 'Beyond GDP', for measures of wellbeing and progress in addition to those that the System of National Accounts (SNA) is designed to provide. We identify key issues that can help build on the rigour of SNA whilst fitting the measurement of economic performance within a broader assessment of national wellbeing and progress. Such drivers are already leading to a proliferation of indicators and accounts, for example in the development of non-monetary measures of natural resources, but there are significant measurement challenges, not least the question of whether a single, overall measure or index of wellbeing is valid. But the challenge of measurement, per se, is one thing: in our view, a more critical issue is whether the measures will actually be used. We propose a dynamic and multi-staged approach for developing SNA, embracing the production and use of measures. This would start by identifying user requirements for wider measures, to provide the basis for national and cross-national developments in well-being accounting. We envisage greater branding and marketing of national well-being concepts to promote measures and support their use. We call for outreach by producers, so that there is dialogue about the development and use of measures.

The standard System of National Accounts (SNA) does not estimate the margins of the products without market prices consumed because it assumes that the cost prices of the final products consumed correspond to the consumer marginal willingness to pay (MWTP). Valuations of products consumed without market prices at their cost prices may not coincide with their simulated exchange values (SEV) that would be paid by consumers. This inconsistent SNA valuation can be avoided by simulating stated or revealed market prices based on consumers’ demands. Our Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS) methodology estimates the margins of the individual products without market prices based on the consumer MWTP. The SEV of private owners and public consumers MWTP for these non-market products are estimated in this study by applying stated and revealed preference valuation methods. The objectives of this study are to compare the environmental incomes, ecosystem services and profitability rates obtained by applying the AAS and the refined SNA (rSNA) methodologies to the case-study oak woodland dehesa and conifer forest farms in Andalusia, Spain. The 41 farms comprise 26 large oak woodland dehesa farms in which trees of the Quercus genus predominate, and 15 conifer forest farms where Pinus species predominate. In the studied farms, 20 individual activities have been identified which 19 are common to both the AAS and rSNA approaches, along with the additional activity of carbon which is registered in the AAS. Ownership rights of 13 private activities correspond to the farmer and 7 public activities to the government. In 2010, the case-study results show that livestock and game species consume grazed fodder which represents 50% and 95%, respectively, of their total forage units consumed in the period 2010. Livestock farming accounts for 31% of the labour compensation in the private oak woodland dehesa farms and 1% in the public conifer forest farms for the farm activities as a whole. The ecosystem services measured by the AAS in the privately-owned oak woodland dehesa and publicly-owned conifer forest farms are 2.7 and 4.6 times greater, respectively, than those estimated by the rSNA. The environmental incomes measured by the AAS for the privately-owned oak woodland dehesa and publicly-owned conifer forest farms account for 61% and 53%, respectively, of their total incomes.

This paper presents a comprehensive and consistent macroeconomic framework, described as a \"New Architecture for the National Accounts.\" This provides a consistent theoretical foundation for the long-overdue integration of growth accounting with national accounts. It presents statistically based means of balancing and reconciling the data derived from the decentralized US statistical systems to provide consistent estimates of economic activity. The framework expands and updates the national accounts to cover key sources of growth such as research and development, human capital and other intangibles, and natural resources. Finally, it expands the scope of the national accounts to better capture the interactions between the economy and the environment, household production, health care, and other near-market activities through a series of supplemental accounts.

This paper provides an explanation for why garbage implies a much lower relative risk aversion in the consumption-based asset pricing model than National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) consumption expenditure: Unlike garbage, NIPA consumption is filtered to mitigate measurement error. I apply a simple model of the filtering process that allows one to undo the filtering inherent in NIPA consumption. \"Unfiltered NIPA consumption\" well explains the equity premium and is priced in the cross-section of stock returns. I discuss the likely properties of true consumption (i.e., without measurement error and filtering) and quantify implications for habit and long-run risk models.

Definitions of output and input are key to studies of productivity analysis, as they are to the national accounts of countries. This paper systematically reviews alternative definitions at production unit and aggregate levels, illustrating the different perspectives that they provide on production and income, and making the case for their use in understanding different aspects of firm and country economic performance.

Measuring the service flow and the stock value of condominium apartments in Canada and decomposing these values into constant quality price and quantity components is important for many purposes. In addition, the System of National Accounts requires that these service flows and stock values for condos be decomposed into constant quality land and structure components. In Canada and most other countries, such a land and structure decomposition of condominium apartment sale prices does not currently exist. In this article, we provide such a decomposition of condominium apartment sales in Ottawa for the period 1996–2009. Specific attention is paid to the roles of communal land and structure space on condominium apartment unit selling prices. Key findings include methods to allocate land and building space to a single condominium unit, identifying the characteristics that best explain condominium prices, and developing an average depreciation rate for condos for the 14-year time period.

Information on the US economy is contained in disparate sources that, while generally congruent, in places track differently defined sectors, omit sectors of interest, or are not fully consistent with one another. This paper discusses and analyzes an innovative set of macroeconomic accounts for the United States that integrate financial and real data from these distinct sources using the System of National Accounts (SNA), a framework for macroeconomic accounts constructed by a number of national and international statistical agencies around the world. The paper illustrates the organization and use of the SNA by studying US economic history leading up to the financial crisis of 2007 and severe recession of 2008. It ends by suggesting three modifications to line and sectoral aggregation that would increase the usefulness of SNA-type data for indicating vulnerability to potential similar crises.

The National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) and related accounts provide the basic set of estimates on a wide range of economic variables of interest to economists, citizens, policymakers, firms, investors, workers, and consumers. The New Architectures for the NIPAs promises to be the capstone of the remarkable renaissance of research and policy interest in these very practical issues, which was sparked by the realization of the immense consequences of decisions based on inaccurate statistics. Economists and statisticians in and out of government will contribute as much or more social value-added here as in virtually any other area of economics.